The Moabite Stone

Archaeological confirmation of YHWH, Israel, and David.

Non-Christians often think that Christianity is something like a fairy tale, that believers are idiots who shut off their rational minds and leap head-first into an evidence-free, mystical “faith” and hold to it even in the face of “scientific” contradiction.

That’s simply not true.

While nobody can prove that God exists (at least before Jesus comes again), God has not asked us to jump into a faith that is based on nothing but fanciful stories. Rather, God provides confirming evidence in many ways and from many different places.

One question we can ask is, “Is the Bible an accurate historical account or was it just fabricated by one or two guys at some point in history?”

As a comparison, take the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith and first published in 1830. It’s a fraud. The Book of Mormon purports to describe a civilization of pre-colonial Americans, including a series of wars between the “Nephites” and “Lamanites,” two people groups descended from characters in the book. One great battle occurs at the Hill Cumorah, located in western New York state. Joseph Smith also claimed that the Book of Mormon was translated from golden plates that were hidden at the Hill Cumorah and which were (conveniently) taken back up into heaven as soon as his translation was completed.

Given the wars described in the Book of Mormon, with a great battle taking place at the Hill Cumorah, archeologists would expect to find everything they do at other ancient battle sites — evidence of people and sometimes of a battle. We’d expect things that people carried, such as coins. We’d expect implements of battle such as weapons or armor. The Book of Mormon describes chariots being used, but pre-colonial native Americans didn’t use wheels before the Europeans arrived. Nothing in the Book of Mormon has been authenticated via archaeology. There are whole web sites that describe the numerous problems with the book and demonstrate that it was a fabrication of Smith’s 1830s mind.

So, do we find the same problems with the Bible? Is it just a made-up book of stories like the Book of Mormon?

In a word, no. We find repeated confirmation through extra-Biblical sources of various people, places, and events that are also described in the Bible. These extra-Biblical confirmations provide evidence that the Bible is reliable and accurate.

While these confirmations don’t prove the existence of God, they do prove that our understanding of the creation of the Bible is correct, that it was written by multiple authors over a long period of time and that those authors were writing the true history of Israel as it took place or shortly thereafter. That history is continually being reaffirmed by various archaeological discoveries which also help confirm that the transmission of the Bible down through history has been accurate with little-to-none of the “corruption” that skeptics sometimes wish for.

What that means to the Christian is that your faith is not built on a fairy tale. It’s built on a reliable foundation. Yes, you still need to answer two critical questions yourself:

1. Does God exist?

2. Is Jesus the Messiah, God’s son, sent to earth to die for our sins?

Those two things cannot be answered by archaeology.

With that, I’ll point you at a video that I found this morning while drinking my coffee. I really like Joel Kramer’s YouTube channel, Expedition Bible. He’s got a number of great videos talking about Biblical history and comparing it to modern archaeological discoveries. You would do well to subscribe to his channel.

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